Customizable 404 on IIS With Web Page Error Toolkit

There is nothing more discouraging as a Web user than stumbling upon a page 404 error. In fact, for large websites the problem is even worse with 2-10% of traffic being sent to pages that either do not exist or have been moved. While most servers provide a generic 404 error page or a sitemap, others have gone out of their way to develop custom pages. The result is often the same however - a dead end for the user.

There's now a better way if you're using an IIS server. Microsoft's Web Page Error Toolkit lets developers create dynamic 404 pages that contain customized error messages along with search results which feature relevant keywords to help users find the information they need. The toolkit is a customizalbe ASP.net application that replaces the defaul error page, enables uers to provide Live Search functionality (or any search engine to return results for the specified domain. Developers can even control the number of results, choose to offer spelling corrections and even make further customizations to the default error message.